23 Vintage Young Adult Novel Covers With Major Lesbian Subtext

It’s no secret that I spent a solid chunk of the ’80s and early ’90s reading terrible young adult novels. Nor is it any secret that Mallory is gay and wants to ride the hobby horse with Bossy Kristy. When you combine both of these not-secrets and add a scoop of excellent nostalgia blogs like Neon & Cigarettes, I’m Remembering, Cliquey Pizza and Vintage Book Covers Flickr — you get me making this very important list for you.

23.

Riese is the 33-year-old CEO, CFO and Editor-in-Chief of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, blogger, fictionist, copywriter, video-maker and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York City, and now lives in The Bay Area. Her work has appeared in nine books including "The Bigger the Better The Tighter The Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image & Other Hazards Of Being Female," magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are!

Oh pleeease we all know Kristy and Cokie Mason had some intense chemistry. Poor Cokie, her feelings about girls confused her so she took it out on Kristy, who was comfortable with her sneakers and softball.

hold on,CEDAR RIVER DAYDREAMS. That series was one of my absolute favorites but I had repressed it completely! I was obsessed with it, but the protagonist was an evangelical Christian and I had never even been to church so i basically spend a lot of time reading those books and thinking about how i should really be saving my soul or something.I struggled with feeling like a godless heathen anyway as a little gay preteen living in the South with no religion so it just gave me so many feelings but i compulsively read every.single.book. some of them many times. I had repressed all of that until this moment so thank you for unlocking such a huge part of my of childhood/subconscious. imma go process now.

also,these books were everything to me as a kid.i remember so many of them so thanks for compiling them!

this made my WEEK! the Girl Talk books had a little survey at the back of each one where you let them know which characters you’d like to see more of and in what situations. wrote in Sexual Situations [blushing FURIOUSLY] and serious illnesses, mailed it in, never heard back. there was the one where Katie got appendicitis later but i was probably too vague in my phrasing for the first bit. i wish i had the words then to tell the survey moderators what i Really wanted in my life, which was Randy Zak getting fingerbanged by Stacy Hansen under one of the tables at Fitzie’s.

Oh my lord. Posts like these make me realize just how very, very many utterly forgettable paperbacks I must have plowed through between the ages of 6 and 12. Do I remember at all what Sleepover Friends or Camp Sunnyside Friends were like or about (besides sleepovers and camp)? Not a clue. BUT I KNOW I READ THEM. (And series like the Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley go without saying — but I’m talking about the weird off-brand versions that nobody really seems to have loved or remembered.)

oooh yeah. and not the ones that revolved around a particular activity like Silver Blades. Practically popular crowd? alexa craft–>trim curvy villain and priscilla handpainted satin jackets? or what about the one of younger girls there was a Meg and Hurricane Stevie?

Yes Silver Blades! I was a figure skater as a child so I read those, though I can’t say they made much of an impression (I think probably also my library only had a couple). Hurricane Stevie is totally ringing some bell . . .

These are fantastic. “Sleepover friend” is my favorite new euphemism. I’m going to leave these two super sessy illustrations from Nancy Drew’s The Mystery at Lilac Inn right here, because they are relevant:

All I’ve seen here are books with two girls on the cover (which is not lesbian subtext) or girls wearing “boys” clothes…. crossdressing =/= homosexuality, and wearing men’s clothes can mean you simply don’t want to pay 5x as much money for half as much fabric.

I have actually been looking for No. 1, ever since I read it under the title “Tommy and the Tigers” some twenty years ago. It’s a great book, about an all girl rock group that passes as boys so they can get better gigs, and featuring a terrific teen girl character who makes good use of her uncanny resemblance to Mick Jagger, and then must deal with adoring girl fans. Sadly, a heterosexual resolution to it all, but lots of fun along the way.

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